Expert Member

This could be our first proper look at the Galaxy S8, but it probably isn’t

Over the course of the past few months, we’ve heard an awful lot about Samsung’s much-anticipated upcoming flagship smartphone of 2017, the Galaxy S8 — and now it looks like we may be getting our first proper glimpse at the design of the device, thanks to a leaked photograph that surfaced on Chinese social networking website Weibo earlier today, which corroborates everything we’ve previously reported about its appearance.

As you can see in the image below, the most noticeable difference between the purported Galaxy S8 and its predecessor is the omission of the physical home button and capacitive navigation keys. What’s strange, however, is that there don’t appear to be any on-screen buttons, either. Typically, when you head into Settings, they don’t automatically hide — so we’re left wondering whether the photo is a product of some Photoshop wizardry.

RIP

The image was posted by the DforDesign Twitter account, and shows two display shells that are supposed to be for the Galaxy S8 and the larger S8 Plus. Both look like they have curved screens with very little bezel. They also both look much like the smartphone mockup that was used in the recent videos from Samsung’s Display division.

Android Police also points out the many sensor windows on top of both display shells, which may indicate the Galaxy S8 could have features like iris scanning that was included in the aborted Galaxy Note 7. In any case, bear in mind that this image has not been confirmed as coming from Samsung, and it could just be a clever mockup, so take this report with a grain of salt appropriate for this kind of leak.